Defence minister was picked up in a military helicopter operating ‘under the guise’ of search and rescue training mission, documents obtained by the Star reveal.

The minister has come under fire for his use of military aircraft while he was vacationing in Newfoundland in 2010.

By:Allan WoodsOttawa Bureau, Published on Thu Dec 01 2011

OTTAWA—A senior air force officer warned against using a search-and-rescue helicopter to pick up Defence Minister Peter MacKay from a fishing trip last year because of the backlash that would occur if the public found out, according to emails obtained by the Toronto Star.

The estimated cost for the flight aboard the Gander-based Cormorant helicopter was $16,000. A cheaper alternative route from the fishing camp to the Gander, Nfld., airport would have involved a 90-minute boat ride followed by a 30-minute drive, according to defence department messages obtained through the Access to Information Act.

Word of MacKay’s flight leaked out this fall, raising questions about politicians using military resources for their personal business. He has insisted the flight was a chance to carry out a long-delayed search-and-rescue (SAR) demonstration.

The Star sought information that would show the arrangements made for the 25-minute flight on July 9. The emails received have raised doubts about MacKay’s version of events.

“The documents certainly do not back up the minister’s story,” said David Christopherson, the NDP defence critic.

MacKay’s travel plans sent military personnel in three provinces scrambling to fulfill a last-minute request that he be collected from the remote Burnt Rattle fishing lodge on the Gander River.

He wanted to catch a flight aboard the military’s Challenger jet to London, Ont., to attend a hastily arranged government announcement.

The request from MacKay’s office went out to senior air force officials on Tuesday July 6 at 8:49 a.m. It took just a few hours for then-Col. Bruce Ploughman, director of the Combined Aerospace Operations Centre in Winnipeg, to raise a red flag.

“So, when the guy who’s fishing at the fishing hole next to the minister sees the big yellow helicopter arrive and decides to use his cellphone to video the minister getting on board and post it on Youtube (sic), who will be answering the mail on that one,” he wrote to colleagues in Ottawa and Winnipeg.

“If we are tasked to do this we of course will comply,” Ploughman continued. “Given the potential for negative press though, I would likely recommend against it.”

In the House of Commons on Thursday, MacKay faced numerous questions on the Star report. In all of his answers, he maintained the flight was a chance for him to combine his need to attend to government business with the air force wish that he witness a SAR demonstration.

But there is no mention in the records obtained by the Star of a scheduled training exercise or a standing offer to allow MacKay to see the highly trained crews at work.

It is not until the day after MacKay’s request was made, July 7, that orders go out from above approving the flight.

“This mission will be under the guise of . . . SAR (training).”

In the fall, Brig.-Gen. Sylvain Bédard was quoted saying that the flight provided “mutual gain” to MacKay and the air force. MacKay repeated this quote when he came under attack in the Commons Thursday.

“We had been looking to showcase the Cormorant’s capabilities and the search-and-rescue capabilities of the Canadian Forces to the minister,” Bédard told the St. John’s Telegram.

But air force officials actually drew up three possible evacuation scenarios. The CH-149 Cormorant factored into only one of those plans.

They first looked at sending a crew from CFB Gagetown, home to 403 Helicopter Operational Training Squadron in New Brunswick, but that would have involved a crew flying 10 hours over two days. A second option was the CH-146 Griffon helicopter fleet at Goose Bay, N.L., but that was too far away as well.

The fleet of three Cormorants in Gander was closest and would have to do the job.

But there was another problem. A quick reconnaissance flight revealed that the landing zone at MacKay’s fishing lodge was too small for the big helicopter to land.

MacKay’s office protested when they got the news. An air force official was told that the landing has been performed in the past.

“I am told … that last year the (minister of national defence) was flying near this location and the pilot landed there (at a spot near the shore, perhaps a short distance away),” wrote Col. Frances Allen, director of support operations with the Strategic Joint Staff in Ottawa.

“MND staff are going to try and find a name or other geographic reference to narrow your (reconnaissance) area.”

A spokesman for MacKay, Jay Paxton, refused to provide more detail on MacKay’s apparent 2009 flight to Burnt Rattle, which is co-owned by one of MacKay’s personal friends, the chair of a federal Crown corporation.

“Any previous flights in the area were in no way related to personal time,” he wrote in an email.

Within hours of MacKay’s request for a lift, the search-and-rescue squadron commander at Gander was fully engaged with the VIP mission confirming that MacKay would be lifted by hoist at 8 a.m. Friday morning, delivering him to the Gander airport 25 minutes later.

“They picked him up in the basket to take him to the Challenger jet,” said Christopherson. “It’s about as outrageous as you can get.”

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